THEOLOGY UNDEE ITS CHANGED CONDITIONS. 177 



ing development they belong. We have to admit the various tenden- 

 cies in the teaching of the apostles ; and, in regard to the central 

 figure of all, to gain from books subject to the same incidents as other 

 forms of literature, and written by men who imperfectly understood 

 him, our consciousness of the value of his life, his character, his teach- 

 ing, and of his relation to mankind and to God. 



The early history of the Church has likewise been subjected to a 

 minute criticism, which has been stimulated of late by the discovery 

 of the " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." The result has been to 

 give us a simpler view of the organization of the Christian societies 

 and of their life and thoughts, to show the influence of various social 

 circumstances working naturally upon them, and forming their insti- 

 tutions and their theology. It becomes less and less possible to attrib- 

 ute to the earliest period of the Church, as having been formally 

 imposed or exclusively admitted, any of the theories of Church gov- 

 ernment which we now know, whether Episcopal, Presbyterian, or In- 

 dependent, or the formed doctrines of later times, whether relating to 

 the plan of redemption or to the Incarnation or the Trinity. 



3. While the progress of science and criticism have thus made 

 new conditions for theological thought, church-life has also undergone 

 changes which allow of the necessary expansion. First, we must recall 

 the formal liberation of opinion effected mainly by the judgment of 

 the Privy Council, delivered in 1864, in the cases arising out of the 

 " Essays and Reviews." The alarm excited ten years before by Mr. 

 Maurice's theological essays, especially on the questions of the atone- 

 ment and of eternal punishment, and by the works of Professor Jow- 

 ett and Dr. Rowland Williams, found expression in Mr. Mansel's 

 " Bampton Lectures " ; and when there appeared successively the first 

 volume of Bishop Colenso's work on the Pentateuch, which was prac- 

 tically a polemic against verbal inspiration, and the " Essays and Re- 

 views," which were a distinct demand for liberty of thought in the 

 authorized teachers of the English Church, this alarm showed itself in 

 the shape of prosecutions for heresy. Out of the multitude of state- 

 ments impugned in the " Essays " of Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson 

 three only remained on which the Privy Council were called to adju- 

 dicate ; but they represented the three departments of theology on 

 which liberty was most distinctly demanded : 1. The Atonement and 

 Justification ; 2. The Inspiration of Scripture ; 3. Eternal Punishment. 

 The charge relating to the first of these was withdrawn, and on the 

 other two the judgment was in favor of the accused. Thus an almost 

 complete liberty was won on the matters then under discussion, and 

 the principles on which the judgment was based practically gave a 

 similar assurance on other points. The tendency of the Privy Coun- 

 cil, as representing the supremacy of the national over ecclesiastical 

 law, has been almost uniformly in favor of liberty. It has been pos- 

 sible in a few extreme cases to procure the condemnation of cler- 



VOL. XXXI. 12 



